A footnote: Hillary Clinton’s prominence points up the remarkable shallowness of the Democratic bench. Whether or not she chooses to run, the supply of plausible alternatives is shockingly thin. The Republicans have an ample roster of men (and only men) who are readily imaginable as nominees, even if thinking about some of them as Presidents (step forward, Ted Cruz) requires thinking about the unthinkable. On the other side, there’s Joe Biden, our septuagenarian Vice-President. There’s Andrew Cuomo—another legacy case. After that, the list drops off rather sharply. Martin O’Malley, governor of Maryland? Sherrod Brown, senator from Ohio? Alec Baldwin? Who else?

Anyone? The floor is open for nominations.

Let’s get started! And let’s stipulate that the basis here, as Rick writes, is imaginability, rather than an enumeration of the anointed. Clinton’s presence has had a distorting effect: the lack of alternatives is largely a product of her prominence. Democrats are supposed to stay frozen in place while she makes up her mind. The bench appears shallow not because it is but because everyone’s waiting to see whether the player who would consume all the space under the salary cap will sign or not. But any list with Martin O’Malley on it could sure be longer. Who’s out there?

There are a lot of women, for one thing, whose names aren’t Warren or Clinton. I’ve written about some of them before: Janet Napolitano has an edge on both O’Malley and Cuomo, if we’re talking about experience. (And she may even be thinking about it.) So did Kathleen Sebelius, though the disastrous Obamacare rollout has knocked her off the list. Amy Klobuchar, the Senator from Minnesota, is said to have some interest, if Hillary doesn’t run; Kirsten Gillibrand, too. It’s telling that the women senators who seem to have the easiest time imagining themselves as Presidential candidates are not the veterans but the relative newcomers. One wonders if (and hopes) this represents a generational shift in ambitions. Barbara Mikulski, at seventy-seven, is almost certainly too old to run now, and may never have seemed “electable.” But it’s a funny world in which Maryland’s five-term senator has never gotten (or maybe asked for) the sort of consideration that the state’s two-term governor has. Maybe Patty Murray, Kay Hagan, and Maria Cantwell should look in the mirror and at the other candidates out there.

Who else? Jennifer Granholm, except that she was born in Canada—but if she’s out, arguably so is Ted Cruz. (Or they could face off in an all-Canada stealth northern invasion.) If we’re talking about 2020, there are also rising figures like Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general.

Scheiber argues that the Democratic base won’t want to wait past 2016 to see a woman on the ticket; he may be right, but Clinton’s side has made a bit too much of the argument that since it has to be a woman, it has to be her. All that may do is delay the moment when there is a woman President, because Clinton’s flaws as a candidate are profound. Many of them have to do with money. There are actually two aspects to this. One involves Clinton’s ideological commitments to corporate and financial constituencies. As Scheiber writes, that puts her at odds with the rising populist passions of her party (and creates an opening for Warren). That’s the respectable version of the problem. But there’s also a disreputable side. Its outlines can dimly be seen in the opaque financial dealings around what is now called the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and in the relations between both Clintons and their donors and friends with money. (This is in addition to the dynastic problem, which Hertzberg rightly points to.) If Hillary dissuades other women from running and her candidacy implodes in the middle of the primaries, bumping the nomination to Biden or that nice Mr. O’Malley, what Scheiber calls “desire to make history again” would probably at least mean that the Vice-Presidential nominee would be a woman—and the Democrats would, for once, have to look at the talent around them.

The Republicans might be looking, too. That field might not be so male after all—not with Senator Kelly Ayotte (though she is up for reëlection in 2016) and Condoleezza Rice out there. There are also some Republican women governors: Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez.

This has just been about women; aren’t there other O’Malley-plus men who might be added to the list? Undoubtedly. But they’ll find their way on it themselves.

Photograph by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty.

Amy Davidson is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.